


born this way (the wrong way)

by pawn_vs_player



Category: Original Work
Genre: Autobiography, Childhood, Depression, Gen, Gender Dysphoria, Gender Issues, Identity Issues, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Mental Health Issues, Nonbinary Character, POV Second Person, Sexuality Crisis, Transgender, the lack of capital letters is on purpose
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-02
Updated: 2018-02-02
Packaged: 2019-03-12 17:44:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,539
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13552431
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pawn_vs_player/pseuds/pawn_vs_player
Summary: it was bad, when you were little. when you didn't understand.it's bad now, in different ways. you understand it now.





	born this way (the wrong way)

 

you're a little girl, five years old. you wear ten strands of colorful mardi gras beads to school and a pink tiara when you're at home and you wear multiple layers of skirts everywhere. your favorite color is pink and you want to be a princess. your best imaginary friend is a beautiful girl named Rose Gold and she has bright pink hair and she takes your hand and flies you away into starry skies, and the two of you play together far away. 

your twin is a little girl too. she laughs and makes you laugh. her favorite color is blue. she wears barrettes in her hair and wants to run on the playground. you want to read. 

 

you're five years old, and the world is wide and bright and beautiful.

 

you're a little girl, but not quite so little. you're six now. you have friends you run around with on the playground. your sister has friends that aren't yours. she gets kissed on the cheek by a boy and comes home saying she'll marry him one day. 

you look at the boys in your grade and you feel nothing. you grab your best friend's hand and run to the playscape instead.

 

you're six years old, and your friend's grandfather dies. you go home and dream of the quiet darkness and wake up screaming.

 

you're seven years old. you're curled up in your closet, not crying but wanting to. you feel awful. not sick-awful, not exactly, but kind of. you feel hot and uncomfortable. 

(you don't know the words for it yet, but if you did know them, you would say: 

there are hot needles pressing under my skin

my stomach is a twisting pit of acid

i want to crawl out of my body

i can't look at myself

i can't let anyone else look at me

help me)

 

(you sleep in the closet for the next two weeks. it's small and dark and isolated. it comforts you.)

 

you're seven years old, and you know something is wrong with you.

 

you're eight years old. your sister throws out her dresses and says that it's easier to play in pants.

 

you're eight years old. you are tired of reading the magic treehouse. there is an itching under your skin that you can't explain.

 

you're nine years old. you give your skirts away and run after your sister.

 

you're nine years old. this is the eighth pet fish you've had that's died. you think of the quiet blackness and feel relief.

  

you're ten years old. you have a friend named nate. he has a crush on you.

you go into the downstairs bathroom at home, lock the door behind you, stare into the mirror. 

you want this, you tell the mirror. you want him to have a crush on you. it's nice.

(you don't know who you're trying to convince.)

(you don't know why you need to convince anyone.)

 

you're ten years old. you start checking books out of the "young adult" section of the library. you learn what the word suicide means. you learn what the word self-harm means.

 

you're eleven years old. you'll be leaving all your friends behind in a few months to go to the next level of school. 

there is a girl. you've known her for three years. no one likes her. you don't like her, but you pity her, and when she was alone you reached out.

she'd grabbed onto you, and now she won't let go even when you pull back and try to shake her off. she won't go.

but it's the end of elementary school in a few months and you are tired. you pull harder. you take larger steps back.

there's an event at school. she finds you in the girls' bathroom, corners you. pulls up her sleeve.

(you've been reading the teen ink books.)

i've been cutting myself, she says. 

(you are never the same.)

 

you're eleven years old. it's been two weeks since she told you. you are called to the principal's office for the first time in your life.

(she lied to you.)

 

you're twelve years old. you're at a new school, the one mama teaches at. you feel good, scraped empty and clean. the itch under your skin is gone most of the time. you don't remember when you lost the bright feelings you used to have. (you can't miss what you don't remember.) you sit at your desk and you doodle on your notes and you think maybe this is going to work out.

 

you are twelve. you have buried everything that is wrong with you down deep in yourself, where you think it'll be trapped.

(nothing stays hidden forever.)

 

you're twelve years old. your best friend tells you she has a crush on your sister's friend. i'm bi, she says, hiding her face against your chest.

the world spins around you, cracking and crumbling and flying back together. the walls in your chest shake and rattle, bricks falling free.

me too, you say, to yourself more than her. 

 

you are twelve. for longer than you have been alive, your mother's mom has been dating a woman.

(even the greatest family cannot keep you safe from the world outside.)

 

you're thirteen years old. it's mother's day. you are kissing your best friend. 

there's a bright feeling in your chest, fluttery and light. you don't remember the last time you were this good. 

 

you are twelve. you are happy.

 

(it feels, looking back on it, like it was all a dream.)

 

you're thirteen years old. it's summer vacation. you're thinking about the future, imagining yourself laughing in front of a crowd, maybe holding someone's hand.

you look at that maybe-future you, and all of a sudden, future you is a man.

you open your eyes.

 

you are thirteen years old. the hot needles under your skin have been banished.

(other tortures will take their place, but right then, it feels like a victory.)

 

you're thirteen years old. you're taking a walk to blow off the steam of stress. your physics teacher is a jerk. 

you come to the intersection. there is a car.

step off the curb.

you are frozen.

 

you are thirteen. you have had a voice in the back of your head for years that tells you that you are worth less than nothing.

that tells you that you are an awful person.

tells you that the world and your family would be better off with you dead.

that you shouldn't be here.

you should never have existed at all.

 

you're thirteen years old. you're sitting in your driveway, sobbing so hard you can barely breathe. your phone is in your hand. you can't see the send button, but you press blindly at the screen anyway.

and then your mama is there.

 

you are thirteen. you tell your mother every awful thing that has been in your head since you were little.

she holds you.

 

you're thirteen years old. you're going to therapy.

 

you are thirteen. it is november. you break up with your girlfriend.

it's a good breakup, much better than in the movies. you feel hopeful.

 

you're fourteen years old. you've been on antidepressants for a few months and a hormone-repressing drug for a couple less.

your psychiatrist leans forward in her chair. i think you might have adhd.

 

you are fourteen. you didn't think anymore of you could be made sense of in one little word.

you were wrong. you're not usually so relieved to be wrong.

 

you're fourteen years old and you've never felt this bad in your life.

 

you are fourteen. there is a safety pin dug a good centimeter into your side. the pulses of pain keep you calm and centered for the next half hour.

you draw a star on your stomach with the point of it. you send a picture to your friend.

she tells your sister. your sister tells your mom.

that's the end of that.

 

you're fifteen years old. you are shopping over summer break and you see a weird-looking necklace. 

it turns out to be a pocket knife on a chain. your mom makes you promise to never use it on yourself.

you promise.

 

you are fifteen. you want to keep your promise.

 

you're fifteen years old. you have four sets of tally marks carved into your left thigh. there are twelve lines on the left side of your stomach and five on the right. there are two sets of tally marks underneath your rib cage.

 

you are fifteen. you couldn't keep your promise.

 

you're fifteen years old. you tell your mom. you show her the cuts. (they heal more slowly than you'd like.)

you have a new antidepressant on the counter.

 

you are fifteen. you take a walk to walgreens and buy a two-piece x-acto knife.

there is a new set of tally marks on your left thigh, right above your knee.

 

you're fifteen years old. you have your earbuds in. you're listening to a song you sang in choir last year. you miss choir. 

you're typing into the Archive of Our Own. you can't entirely explain why. 

it's lunchtime. you need to go. 

sorry. i've never been good at endings.


End file.
